Hyperaric Medicine Team Joins War On Cancer
The University of California, San Diego Medical Center's Hyperbaric Medicine Center is part of a nationwide effort to compile and evaluate data in order to validate whether cancer patients being treated for radiation-related wounds heal more quickly and more thoroughly with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
Each year in the United States, approximately 1.2 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer, half of whom receive radiation therapy. About five percent of those individuals develop problems or "late effect" wounds related to the radiation. Specialists say hyperbaric oxygen therapy is beneficial in managing radiation related injuries, and that a large-scale collection and analysis of data across treatment sites will help substantiate this working knowledge.
...Radiation therapy can leave behind wounds on the skin, or cause blood in the urine or stool. The increased exposure to concentrated levels of oxygen through hyperbaric oxygen therapy helps re-generate blood vessels, thus delivering more oxygen to the wounded area and facilitating healing.
...Initially used to treat diving complications, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is used for many indications from the specialties of: orthopedic surgery, general surgery, plastic surgery, maxillofacial and oral surgery, infectious disease, radiation oncology, and emergency medicine."
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